Illustration: Chen Xia/GT

With Chinese arrivals falling sharply, Japan's tourism industry is having to look for new sources of visitors. Nikkei Asia reported on Sunday that Japan was stepping up efforts to attract Indian visitors, with hotels and travel agencies expanding services tailored to them, including meal options and activities.

India is indeed an expanding source of visitors for Japan. According to the Japan National Tourism Organization, arrivals from India rose 19 percent year-on-year in the first nine months of 2026. Some other markets also posted strong growth. Yet Japan's broader tourism figures tell a less encouraging story: total international arrivals fell 2.9 percent over the same period.

The decline in Chinese arrivals shows the limits of diversification. In the first nine months of 2026, the number of visitors from the Chinese mainland fell 55.5 percent year-on-year, a drop of more than 4 million. That is a substantial loss for a country that received just 30.7 million international visitors over the same period. It seems that Japan's sustained efforts to diversify its visitor base have so far failed to fill the gap left by Chinese tourists.

Diversifying its visitor base makes sense for Japan, but that does not mean it can afford to let Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi's erroneous remarks on Taiwan alienate Chinese tourists, given China's longstanding importance as a source market. Japan's Jiji Press reported in March that as Chinese arrivals declined amid strained relations, the Japanese government planned to focus on attracting more visitors from Europe, the US, Australia and other regions. If the strategy is judged by whether it can significantly boost Japan's overall inbound visitor numbers, it has failed so far.

Japan's inbound visitor numbers will need to grow substantially, from about 42.7 million in 2025 to 60 million by 2030, to meet the government's target. Reaching that goal will be considerably more difficult if Chinese tourists remain a missing piece of Japan's tourism growth picture.

Japan's inbound visitor numbers grew by 15.8 percent in 2025, with Asia accounting for part of that growth. As Asian economies continue to expand, more people in the region have the means and the appetite to travel abroad, creating new opportunities for destinations such as Japan. This trend was reflected in the first nine months of 2026, when arrivals from South Korea, India, Malaysia and Indonesia all rose by double digits. 

Yet this growing demand failed to translate into an increase in Japan's overall visitor numbers. Japan was well-placed to benefit from Asia's expanding appetite for overseas travel, but the steep decline in Chinese arrivals has left much of that potential unrealized.

Chinese mainland residents made 148.36 million outbound tourist trips in 2025, up 20.8 percent year-on-year. Chinese outbound tourism is becoming an increasingly important source of visitors for destinations throughout Asia. Japan, with its own ambitions for tourism growth, can ill afford to turn its back on a market of this scale.

Restoring Chinese tourists' confidence in visiting Japan will take more than promotional campaigns. Japan must address the damage caused by Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi's erroneous remarks on Taiwan, which lie at the root of the current situation in China-Japan relations. Consider this: when choosing where to spend their holidays, how many Chinese tourists would willingly travel to a destination where they feel their national sentiments have been deeply hurt? The answer is unlikely to be many.

Those in Japan who expect visitor diversification to drive overall tourism growth and help the country reach its target of 60 million international arrivals by 2030 may be disappointed if they believe the Chinese market can simply be replaced. Diversification can broaden Japan's visitor base, but it cannot make the loss of such a large market any less consequential. 

Rebuilding Chinese tourists' confidence and regaining their goodwill are not optional extras. They are steps Japan's tourism industry can hardly afford to avoid if the country is serious about making meaningful progress toward its 2030 tourism target.